Allegorically this sums up the dilemma of the socialist People in the modern world, providing "work" for society "as before," but as "a sham," i.e., with no loyalty and no hope of ever attaining wealth through it. Wealth/hope comes from another source entirely. As always, the word "treasure" here carries a double meaning of character, of inner worth, and we can read this as saying that the People cling ever more tenaciously to the certainty of their independent worth. The sentence "the treasure was real," though couched in the voice of Nostromo's mental state, is actually a statement of fact by the narrator, reinforcing the novel's message that inner worth is the true treasure of mankind.